I'm reading a book about Bernard Fisher. He's my husband's hero. We have his portrait hanging on our wall, signed and everything. He was an Air Force Pilot who received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his courageous and selfless acts in the Vietnam War. Amazing guy. Fo' sho'.
His autobiography, Beyond the Call of Duty, is vastly different from any other book I've read. I don't want to say anything bad about it, because it's not a bad book, I'm just having a hard time falling into sync with the writing style. One minute we're talking about military training, the next paragraph is a cute story about his son getting lost in Japan, and in the next paragraph the Korean War is over and we're moving back to the United States. No transitions. No underlying themes. Just a collage of tangent stories squashed together ("we'll call it a 'chapter,' old boy, it'll be brilliant!")
I'm so confused!!
The story of his seven year old son in Japan is, I'll admit, cute and enjoyable to read. Towards the end of it I started thinking, "Okay Bernie (I call him 'Bernie' now, apparently), we're taking a bit of detour here...when is this going to become important to the story?" And just when Bernie's convinced me that we've gone too far into the tale of his little boy for this to be just another tangent, he shoves me into the story's next event without permitting even a single look back. I feel misled. Not to mention frustrated at the time wasted on two pages of information that I'm not going to need EVER. But he keeps doing it!
80 pages into the book and I'm finally getting used to jumping from mini-story to mini-story; I've given up all hope of an over-arcing plot because, let's face it, there's been no point in the previous eighty pages, why would there be a point in the last eighty? Apparently the only purpose of this book is to allow me to read about some fellow's idyllic American life. Yippee.
UNTIL!
Page 89: "What I couldn't know at that moment was how valuable those two experiences would be in just a little over a year when I'd face combat for the first time in my military career."
Oh so NOW we're all about giving the reader pertinent information that ties into the climax of the story. I get it. Only problem with that is, after 90 pages of him reminiscing on unrelated topics, I started to skim (and even completely skip) whole chapters. I came to that sentence and thought, 'Two experiences? What experiences?'
Am I going to go back in the book to find out?
Not a chance! Let's don't be silly, now. I worked dang hard to trudge 90 pages into this book, there's no back-tracking at this point in the game. I'll trust to my powers of inference when I get to that part of the story. Besides, the "experiences" are probably only interesting in their detail to other pilots. I don't know if you know this about me, but I am not, nor do I have any desire to be, a pilot. (surprise!) Much less an Air Force pilot. (double surprise!)
Maybe that's my problem with this book: Bernie and I have very little in common. If we were to sit down and have a conversation over dinner it would be one of those evenings filled with courteous pity laughs, awkward silences, and saying the wrong things at the wrong moments. If we ever had dinner, my husband would need to be there to carry the conversation. Then they could both talk about how great it is to be in the U.S. military (look at how manly we are with our manly planes, tanks, guns, and ammunition) and swap ideas for outings with their local scout troops. And I could sit to one side quietly nibbling on biscotti and wondering where the waiter could be with our check.
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